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Welcome to the
Survey of Doctorate Recipients (SDR) site!


You can now view results from the 2023 SDR at https://ncses.nsf.gov/surveys/doctorate-recipients/2023.


We appreciate your interest in the survey and look forward to your participation in the next SDR.


The SDR is sponsored by the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics within the U.S. National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

The Survey of Doctorate Recipients (SDR) is a survey of individuals who received a doctoral degree in science, engineering, or health (SEH) from a U.S. institution. The SDR represents doctorate degree holders who are working, retired, seeking work, or in some other situation. This study provides the only data on the education and training, work experiences, and career development of the U.S. trained doctoral population. The SDR is a unique source of information about U.S.-trained doctoral scientists and engineers living in the United States and abroad.

SDR DATA IN ACTION

Scroll to preview the data graphics. Click to expand and interact with the data.
Trouble seeing a graphic? If the expanded graphic is too large or small, zoom to adjust the graphic image size. The interactive graphics are best viewed on large screen devices (i.e., desktop).

U.S. residing, employed doctoral scientists and engineers by fine field of doctorate (2023) where the percent of population by fine field is shown in a bubble chart. Employment sector percents for each field are shown in a bar chart as a degree field bubble is selected.
U.S. residing employed doctoral scientists and engineers by sex and occupation (2023) are shown in a bar chart.
Retirement patterns for SEH doctorate holders age 55 and older in 2015 from the longitudinal SDR file (2015-2019) shown in an interactive Sankey diagram.
Percent of the U.S.-trained SEH doctorate holders by world region (2023) shown on a world map where gender and employment status is detailed in a bar chart. Users select to include or exclude the U.S.-residing doctorates from the percentages displayed.